... and that is a major increase from ten years ago when one in four had the disease. They claim that the reasons are that Americans are getting older and fatter and do not take care of themselves. I believe the real cause is that we know more about hypertension than we did in the past and can recognize it and control it, albeit by drugs. But some of us (me included) are using the drugs as well as weekly exercise to offset the effects. But there has to be more reasons for this surge in high blood pressure. Here may be some examples:

1. You come home at night and find out that your seven-year-old has been left alone with the television on set to the "Whoopie" channel.
2. Your new American-made automobile which now costs over $30,000 when you bought it three months ago is now scheduled for its fifth recall—it seems that the steering wheel may fall off at any moment.
3. Your old "calm and peaceful" radio station which you used to use to fall asleep to has been replaced by the "Screeming Meemies Hard Metal Station" and you cannot find a replacement.
4. Your wife enters the room and announced that her car has been in an accident. She missed her mark and smashed into your car while sitting in the garage.
5. You log on to your computer website and in your bank website you discover that someone has hacked into your area, stolen your money and changed your password. You find out later that the hacker was your faithful gardener Manuel.
6. Your teenaged daughter arrives in a leather outfit designed by Elvira and announces that the biker friend that she has been going out with for three months is no longer infected and they plan to get married in Morocco as soon as his divorce is finalized.
7. You cannot find a worthy candidate that you can vote on for president. One started a war and is cuddly. The other one thinks that he looks like Lincoln, talks a lot but lost most of his brains in Vietnam. The third one is in it for the exercise. You are still looking for a replacement for Teddy Roosevelt.
8. You go over to your mother's house for dinner and her favorite meatloaf. This time, she mentions that to save calories and be healthy, she has replaced the ground beef with Gardenburger. Even her ketchup is made out of soy.
9. A peaceful drive in the country is interrupted two cars up in line with a jerk playing metallic rock with super speakers that are shaking the foundations of the houses surrounding him. You cannot even hear your wife talking. You pull up to the offender and find out that it's the local police chief in his cruiser.
10. Your dog brought into the house a present for you---a live skunk.

• Hundreds of volunteers have started to stack sandbags around you.
• Doctor tells you your weight would be perfect for a man 17 feet tall.
• You are responsible for a slight but measurable shift in the earth's axis.
• Right this minute you're laughing up pie on the carpet.
• You decide to take a little nap and wake up in mid-July.
• World's fattest man sends you a telegram, warning you to "back off!"
• CBS tells you to lose weight or else.
• Getting off your couch requires help from the fire department.
• Every escalator you step on immediately grinds to a halt.
• You're sweating' gravy.

To the Guy Who Mugged Me Downtown

Posted to Craig's List Personals:

Date: 2009-01-06, 3:43AM EST

I was the  guy with the black Burberry jacket that you demanded I hand over shortly after you pulled the knife on me and my girl friend. You also asked for my girl friend's purse and earrings. I hope you somehow come across this message. I'd like to apologize.

I didn't expect you to crap your pants when I drew my pistol after you took my jacket. Truth is, I was wearing the jacket for a reason that evening, and it wasn't that cold outside. You see, my girl friend had just bought me that Kimber 1911 .45 ACP pistol for Christmas, and we had just picked up a shoulder holster for it that evening. Beautiful pistol, eh? It's a very intimidating weapon when pointed at your head, isn't it?

I know it probably wasn't a great deal of fun walking back to wherever you'd come from with that brown sludge flopping about in your pants. I'm sure it was even worse since you also ended up leaving your shoes, cellphone, and wallet with me. I couldn't have you calling up any of your buddies to come help you try to mug us again. I took the liberty of calling your mother, or "Momma" as you had her listed in your cell, and explaining to her your situation. I also bought myself some gas on your card. I gave your shoes to one of the homeless guys over by Vinnie Van Go Go's, along with all of the cash in your wallet, then I threw the wallet itself in a dumpster.

I called a bunch of phone sex numbers from your cell. They'll be on your bill in case you'd like to know which ones. Alltel recently shut down the line, and I've only had the phone for a little over a day now, so I don't know what's going on with that. I hope they haven't permanently cut off your service. I was about to make some threatening phone calls to the DA's office with it. Oh well.

So, about your pants. I know that I was a little rough on you when you did this whole attempted mugging thing, so I'd like to make it up to you. I'm sure you've already washed your pants, so I'd like to help you out. I'd like to reimburse you for the detergent you used on the pants. What brand did you use, and was it liquid or powder? I'd also like to apologize for not killing you and instead making you walk back home humiliated. I'm hoping that you'll reconsider your choice of path in life. Next time you might not be so lucky. If you read this message, email me and we'll do lunch and laundry. Peace!

- Alex

24. Yellow Pages - This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodle Factors like an acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers a nd print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.

23. Classified Ads - The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argum ent is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.

22. Movie Rental Stores - While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world, but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008, especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City. Movie Gallery, which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year. Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost already.

21. Dial-up Internet Access - Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.

20. Phone Landlines - According t o a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.

19. Chesapeake Bay Blue Crabs - Maryland's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay. Last year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down 70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120 million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a sustainable population. Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and global warming get the blame.

18. VCRs - For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR ). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days. Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically nowhere to be found. They served us so well.

17. Ash Trees - In the late 1990s, a pretty, irridescent green species of beetle, now known as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have killed millions of trees in the midwest, and continue to spread. They've killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana. More than 7.5 billion ash trees are currently at risk.

16. Ham Radio - Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless communications with each other and are able to support their communities with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However, proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse Code is no longer a requirement.

15. The Swimming Hole - Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the past. '20/20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High Falls, N.Y., are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.

14. Answering Machines - The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20 our list -- the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped 55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

13. Cameras That Use Film - It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professional's choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

12. Light Bulbs - Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL) is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.

11. Stand-Alone Bowling Alleys - BowlingBalls.US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys. Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types or recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades, climbing walls and glow miniature golf. Bowling lanes also have been added to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts, and gambling casinos.

10. The Milkman - According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home-delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket, better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying breed.

9. Hand-Written Letters - In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased expon entially since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the elegant, polite hand-written letter?

8. Wild Horses - It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National Geographic News estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head. Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective euthanasia.

7. Personal Checks - According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14% plan to increase their use of PIN debit. Bill payment remains the last strongh old of paper-based payments -- for the time being. Checks continue to be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).

6. Drive-in Theaters - During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and five reopened in 2006, so there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the closed ones.

5. Mumps & Measles - Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually, truly are disappearing from the United States. In 1964, 212,000 cases of mumps were reported in the U.S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000, thanks to a vigorous vaccination prog ram. Prior to the introducton of the measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were recorded.

4. Honey Bees - Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread throughout the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to 90% of the colonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their livelihood.

3. News Magazines and TV News - While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last several decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.

2. Analog TV - According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S. get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals -- who are using rabbit ears or a large out door antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air. If you are one of these people you'll need to get a new TV or a converter box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital.

1. The Family Farm - Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly. According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the 2007 census hasn't yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S. farms are small family farms.

"In a closet," he replied. "I wanted to know what life really is."

"And have you found an answer?"

"Yes," he replied. "I think it can best be expressed by saying that life is like a bridge."

"That's all well and good," replied the colleague, "but can you be a little more explicit? Can you tell me how life is like a bridge?"

"Oh," replied the philosopher after some thought, "maybe you're right; perhaps life is not like a bridge."

• People at work who leave their desk radio on all the time, and assume that EVERYBODY likes Bolivian zither music.
• People who assume that you are not Irish if you forget to wear green on St. Patrick's Day.
• People who come up and begin a conversation with, "did you ever hear the one about...."
• People who think that you are low class just because you drive a 1974 Pinto with racing stripes and fuzzy dice in the front window.
• Teal anything.
• News anchors who ask a fake spontaneous question of a on-air reporter who always seems to have the correct answer. Why cannot someone just say, "I really don't know, Bob!"
• Someone in the "Under 10 item" line with fifteen items and two sets of unruly twins that need a diaper change.
• The speeder went past you going fifty in a thirty, and the cop pulls you over for having a blinker missing instead.
• A Joy: A day when Howard Stern, Oprah, Rush Limbaugh, Andy Rooney and Mancow have absolutely nothing at all to say at all.

• Every year, thousands of old drugs get replaced by new. Here is how to tell that yours is going to be replaced:
• Your drug now has new initials after its old name like Zippedee APF
• The cost of your old drug has gone down to under fifty dollars to meet generic competition.
• The commercial spokesman used to be a local announcer. Tony Bennett is touting the new one.
• You discover that your drug now comes in a tablet that looks like aspirin instead of gelcaps.
• Your doctor cannot get samples of your drug any longer.
• Suddenly there are unconfirmed reports of new side effects on your pill that you never heard of before.
• Your old drug is now being combined with another old drug to form a new and expensive new drug with new premium prices.
• Your old advertising spokesman for your drug died fifteen years ago.
• You can understand all of the information about the drug including its formula name and the name of its inventor.
• It is preferred by AARP.

Morris, as a young man in the Old West, wanted to be the best gunfighter alive. One night as he was sitting in a saloon, he spotted an old man who had the reputation of being the greatest gunfighter in his day. So Morris walked up to the old man and told him his dream. The old man looked him up and down and said, "I have a suggestion that is sure to help."

"Tell me, tell me," said the young man.

"Tie the bottom of your holster lower onto your leg."

"Will that make me a better gunfighter?"

"Definitely," said the old man.

Young Morris did what he was told and drew his gun and shot the bow tie off the piano player. "Wow, that really helped. Do you have any more suggestions?"

"Yeah, if you cut a notch in the top of your holster where the hammer hits, the gun will come out smoother."

"Will that make me a better gunfighter?"

"It sure will," said the old man.

The young guy did what he was told and drew his gun and shot a cufflink off the piano player. "This is really helping me. Is there anything else you can share with me?"

"One more thing," said the old man. "Get that can of axle grease over there in the corner and rub it all over your gun."

The young Morris didn't hesitate but started putting the grease on the gun.

"No, the whole gun, handle and everything," said the old man.

"Will that make me a better gunfighter?"

Dump the male flight attendants. No one wanted them in the first place. Replace all the female flight attendants with good-looking strippers! What the hell -- They don't even serve food anymore, so what's the loss? The strippers would at least triple the alcohol sales and get a 'party atmosphere' going in the cabin. And, of course, every businessman in this country would start flying again, hoping to see naked women. Because of the tips, female flight attendants wouldn't need a salary, thus saving even more money. I suspect tips would be so good, that we could charge the women for working the plane and have them kick back 20% of the tips, including lap dances and 'special services.' Muslims would be afraid to get on the planes for fear of seeing naked women. Hijackings would come to a screeching halt, and the airline industry would see record revenues. This is definitely a win-win situation if we handle it right -- a golden opportunity to turn a liability into an asset.

Why didn't Bush think of this? Why do I still have to do everything myself?

Sincerely, Bill Clinton

• Bring in a mop bucket and ringer and use a fake Polish accent, shout something about 'I don't want to go back to Warsaw' As you rattle it through the store.
• At the rush check out counter, go through all of your credit cards twice before you hand over the MasterCard with the signature needed on it. Then argue with the Pakistani check-out lady in French.
• "I want American Made Goods!!"--you shout as you run through the front door in your Uncle Sam suit and American flag.
• Chain all of their carts together at the cart corral.
• At the check out, make sure all of the items you have in your cart have pricing questions, so that the lines behind you are even longer.
• As you leave, shout, "I demand to see Sam Walton!!"
• Rig the blood pressure machine in the pharmacy to read double.
• Make sure all of your returns are in Target or K-Mart bags.
• Use up all of the paper towels in the bathrooms and flush them down the toilet and then run.
• Always knock over a couple of can displays per aisle--especially the busy ones.
• Always remove clothes from a rack and throw them around. If anyone asks, you say that it keeps the associates working and doing their job.
• Give the old greeter a high-five when you come in the store. If it's an old lady, use both hands—knock her down!